


The Dragon's Son

by tielan



Series: Legends Of Camelot [2]
Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-08
Updated: 2010-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-09 08:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long ago and far away, a prince grew to maturity among his people. This is not his story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written in October 2009, while the 2nd half of Merlin was still screening. Everything after 2.07 - The Witchfinder - is questionable.

Long ago and far away, a prince grew to maturity among his people. Strong in his heritage, cunning in his gifts, confident in his birthright, he set out through the land to spread his rule abroad.

Yet, even as he succeeded, there were those who resented his influence and majesty, who remembered old wrongs left unrighted, and old hurts left unhealed. The prince's enemies took him by stealth and wickedness and imprisoned him beyond the reach of light and hope until all memory should be lost of him.

This is not his story.

\--

Arthur comes in from training to find Morgana's new maid giving Merlin a piece of her mind.

"You can't just deny me the prince's chambers!"

He can hear them all the way down the corridor, the echoes carrying in the empty space. "Actually, I can. Unless the Lady Morgana's asked you to fetch something for her from there, although I don't know why she didn't ask me while I was visiting her five minutes ago. What do you want?"

"I want to speak to Prince Arthur."

"Well, you can't. He's not here."

"Actually, I am now." Arthur climbs the last few stairs with some effort. He feels sticky and sweaty and wants a cup of wine, a solid meal, and a hot bath - not necessarily in that order.

The girl whirls, startled, and drops into a deep curtsey. "Sire."

Over her head, he gives Merlin a significant look. _What's all this about?_

His servant's shrug says most of it. He's got no more idea than Arthur.

The girl's risen, green eyes lingering on his face. She's a small, pert thing, blonde and buxom, and Morgana says she has nothing to complain of her service, save that she isn't Guinevere. A small thing, maybe, to most nobles; a big thing to Morgana, who's grown secretive and withdrawn since the Fae took Guinevere in exchange for their lives.

"Sire, I need to speak with you."

"You're speaking with me now."

The girl glances over her shoulder, shooting venomous looks at Merlin, who's got his best 'innocent' look on again. "In _private_."

Once upon a time, he'd have assumed that anything a servant girl had to say couldn't possibly be important compared to his need for a hot bath and clean clothing.

_You claim titles don't matter to you, but you behave like a prince and expect me to wait on you like a servant._

"You have as much time as it takes Merlin to find some servants to fill my bath," he tells her and ignores the way Merlin rolls his eyes and huffs off. "And get me some lunch and wine while you're at it!"

She follows him into the room and closes the door behind Merlin, then stands there as he picks an apple from the table, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. The pose completes a pretty picture of innocence, made all the more affecting by the way she looks up at him from between dark-blonde lashes.

"Well?" Arthur says when the girl doesn't continue.

Now that she's actually got his attention, she seems hesitant to speak. "It's...it's the Lady Morgana. I didn't want to take this to King Uthyr but..."

"Yes?" When she doesn't continue, he frowns. "What about the Lady Morgana?"

"I think she's practising magic, sire."

\--

Arthur sets the half-eaten apple down on the table as the maid pours out her suspicions.

Morgana, a witch? At first it seems a ridiculous.

Then pieces of the puzzle begin to fall together.

It explains why the Druids tried to take her years ago; and why she was so invested in saving the Druid boy in the first place. The fire that started in her quarters, the attacks his father believed were magic cast against her, the odd things that happened - and still do - to Morgana and no-one else in the castle.

It would explain some of Morgana's moods in the past seasons.

She's been subdued of late, aloof in a way that once would have been adopted to pique Arthur and his knights, but is now no longer intentional. Her outbursts are less frequent, less fiery, but the pent-up ferocity of her personal crusades still burns inside her, given outlet...how?

Arthur never dreamed Morgana might be using magic, and it floors him.

"Sire? Did I do right in bringing this to you? I'll not say a word to anyone, I promise..."

"No," he tells her. "You did the right thing. Continue to serve the Lady and..." But he can't bring himself to say the words that naturally follow on from that sentence. _Tell me if you see Morgana practising magic again._ He wouldn't have set Guinevere to spy on his foster-sister, why should he ask this girl?

Then again, Guinevere would never have brought this to Arthur in the first place. She'd have kept her counsel and protected Morgana - with her life if needed.

If it comes to that, she _did_ give her life to protect Morgana - and Arthur and Merlin, too.

Arthur drags his thoughts back to the new maid, her gaze intent as she watches him. It occurs to him that this girl might not even want to serve a mistress she believes is using magic. He's not sure he could blame her.

"If you wish to be reassigned..."

"No, my lord! I...I'm happy where I am." Her words are a relief, and Arthur reaches for the apple again. At least he doesn't need to think up a reason to use on his father for why Morgana's gone through yet another maid. And speaking of servants, where the hell is Merlin and his bath? "But..."

"But?"

"But if my lord...requires anything of me..." The pause is significant, as is the blush that touches her cheeks - very becomingly, he notes - although she then continues. "Regarding the Lady Morgana, of course."

"Of course." Arthur doesn't bat a lash. "No, just continue to look after the lady and keep your silence."

She drops into another deep curtsey, and now Arthur notices that her clasped hands are squeezing her breasts together, giving him an excellent view of her cleavage. From the look of it, she's quite a handful - whichever way a man would want to take it.

Arthur keeps his expression graciously aristocratic until the door closes behind her; then he lets out an explosive breath, and plants his hands on the table.

Of all the things to come up now, Morgana and magic are two things he doesn't want to confront.

\--

Unable to take it to his father, reluctant to confront Morgana, without Guinevere to tell him the truth of it - and she _would_ have known the truth, Arthur tells Merlin the maid's suspicions and his own thoughts while he eats.

Merlin pauses in laying out Arthur's meal. "Morgana's practising magic?"

"The maid says she's heard her muttering in a language she doesn't recognise. There are papers that apparently appear and disappear and she's never seen where Morgana keeps them." Arthur swirls the wine in his glass. "And she says that sometimes things move around the room and there's no-one touching them."

"That's not proof that Morgana's practising magic."

"Which is why she hasn't taken it to my father."

Abruptly, it occurs to Arthur that the maid's offer of a romp might have been a form of exchange: take what the maidservant is offering and she won't say anything about Morgana. Why didn't he see that before?

"Shouldn't you be talking to Morgana about this, then?" Arthur scowls as he takes the cutlery his manservant's offering, and Merlin hastily backtracks. "Right, dinner first."

It's usual for Merlin to clean up around the room while Arthur's eating. At least he does it quietly now, although he still has moments. Today in particular, he seems even more preoccupied than usual. While turning around with his arms full of armour, he nearly knocks over the great iron candelabra, then bumps into the sword-stand as he's trying to right it, and scatters the armour everywhere across the floor.

"What _is_ your problem today?"

"Other than that I'm clumsy, stupid, and generally useless?" How Merlin manages to make Arthur's old insults sound like they're a joke, Arthur will never understand. Perhaps a servant doesn't have the same kind of pride as a prince, but they still have their pride and it still hurts when pricked.

Guinevere taught him that.

"Other than that."

"Hm. Nothing. I'm just going to take these and--"

It dawns on Arthur that Merlin's babbling. And, moreover, that there's something wrong with his manservant's response to the maid's report about Morgana.

"You're not surprised."

"About what?"

"Morgana using magic." This time, Arthur glimpses the flicker of dismay that crosses Merlin's face, feels something nagging at his memory.

Arthur's memories of that day are scattered and fragmentary now - as though the whole thing took place in a dream.

What he remembers is the way it felt to be helpless on the ground - armed but effectively disarmed. He recalls the way Guinevere's hand brushed against his nape, the moment's impulse he'd felt to turn his cheek into that roughened hand. He can't forget the anger that shook him when she exchanged her life for theirs - what right did she have to claim responsibility for them, as though she was the lady and they were mere servants?

And he remembers the Sídhe courtier - dark-skinned, fine-clothed, with an amused air as Arthur threatened him with violence.

"The day we were in the forest - the day the Sídhe took Guinevere... They knew your name."

"Well, they knew all our names."

"They said yours could be heard in the kingdoms of the Sídhe if we had ears to hear."

"Are you sure your ears didn't need cleaning that day? Because I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I think you do. And I think you know more about Morgana than you're letting on."

"Uh...you know, this armour isn't getting any cleaner. I should probably--"

"You should probably sit down." Arthur points at the stool in the corner. "And start talking."

\--

He doesn't usually use intimidation on Merlin, but he figures today's a special situation. Arthur lays one hand on the table and the other on Merlin's shoulder, and leans over his manservant ever so slightly. "We'll start with what you know about Morgana."

"She's your foster-sister." Somehow, Merlin manages to look cagey and innocent all at once.

"Merlin!"

"All right, what if magic _isn't_ evil? What if it's just one more ability someone has? You know there's more to magic than your father paints it. You've seen his irrationality regarding magic."

"You're not answering the question."

"I don't know anything about Morgana."

Arthur narrows his eyes. That had a ring of truth to it - sort of. "So what do you _suspect_?"

Merlin glances away, and Arthur has a sudden insight.

"Is this like your friend at the village? The one who was a sorcerer?" His manservant hesitates, and that's enough to tell him that it _is_ like the sorcerous young man in the village. Merlin's protecting Morgana. A tiny flame of anger leaps up. Dear Christ, does Merlin think him that rigid? He stands straight. "Merlin, you're not the only one who cares about Morgana. And I can't protect her if I don't know what she is!"

"You can't protect her if Uthyr finds out, either!" Blue eyes snap with a sudden, uncharacteristic anger. Merlin's never been servile, but the expression on his face is something Arthur's not used to seeing. For a moment, his manservant is a stranger before the ferocity fades leaving just Merlin. "What are you going to do?"

He doesn't know. He hasn't had time to think about this much.

And he's still hungry.

Sitting back down again, Arthur keeps one wary eye on Merlin, who doesn't move from the stool, but perches there, toes on the floor, wrists on the seat edged, balanced. His shoulders are hunched over, but his expression is open and thoughtful.

"You've got a natural skill with a sword," Merlin says as Arthur saws through meat grown cold. "What if magic's just like another skill?"

"Anyone can learn to use a sword." Arthur pauses. "Anyone except you."

"Maybe anyone can learn to use magic, too - it just takes more effort for some than others. I'll never use a sword as anything more than a club; someone else will never use magic."

The potatoes are mealy, would be delicious if they weren't cold. Arthur frowns, but swallows and lets himself be caught up by the argument rather than send Merlin back down to the kitchens to get something hot. "It's still dangerous, Merlin. There's a reason my father's abolished the use of magic and mages."

"And if the reason's wrong? Do you really believe Morgana's evil?"

"No." He's known Morgana since they were children; she's stubborn, wilful, imperious, demanding, and a right pain in the arse at times, but she's not evil. "That doesn't change the fact that she's using magic."

"I thought you said this was just the maid's story."

"All right. It doesn't change the fact that Morgana might be using magic, and if she is..."

If she is, then they're in trouble.

\--

Morgana's in one of the southern sunrooms when Arthur finds her.

Ostensibly, she's reading. She actually staring out the window, not paying one bit of attention to the book of... Arthur pulls it up to see the cover. "Virgil's _Aeneid_?"

"At least I can read it. How bad is your Latin?" Morgana leans back in the chair, all white shoulders and vivid green dress. "What are you doing here?"

"I...uh..." He glances around the room, wondering how to bring the subject up. "Where's your maid?"

She shrugs. It's an ordinary gesture - very Morgana. The idea that the girl sitting in front of him is a sorceress seems laughable at this moment; but he has this idea in his head now, thanks to Merlin and there's no stopping it. "I don't know. Why?"

"Nothing. I'm just wondering...how are you finding her?"

"She's a good worker, I suppose." Another shrug; it doesn't make a difference to her. "She's not Gwen."

No, she's not.

Arthur feels the loss like stone in his belly. Perhaps it's a foolish thing to still hurt over something that was never there. They exchanged no promises, made no commitments. She never promised to wait, he never promised to cleave to her. They were barely friends, connected only through Morgana and Merlin.

And yet...

"I've been thinking of going back."

Her words startle him. "What? Back into the forest? To be taken prisoner by the Sídhe?"

"A swap. I'd willingly take Gwen's place."

"Among the Sídhe?"

"Yes."

"Because of your magic?" The words slip past his guard. He hadn't intended to ask, yet even before he closes his mouth, he knows the shaft has struck home.

She holds herself like a hunted creature waiting out the hunter. "I don't have magic."

It's a staring game between them; whose will is stronger? Who will be the first to look away? Arthur watches her and she watches him. It doesn't occur to him to be afraid. Magic is magic, but this is _Morgana_.

Finally, Morgana's gaze drops to her book, and although her face is downcast, her pose shifts, shoulders setting back, resolute; every inch the lady. "What will you tell your father?"

"Only what he knows, which seems to be nothing. For heaven's sake, Morgana! I didn't believe when-- You know the edict against magic!"

"I know the edict is wrong! Arthur, what I can do...I was born with it - I didn't ask for it. I've sacrificed to no gods, made no exchange of souls, nor promises to demons. Magic's not evil, it's just something that can be used - like a sword or a bow."

He eyes her. "Have you been talking to Merlin?"

Dark brows rise. "We do hold conversations from time to time. Why?"

"Nothing." He rests his elbows on his knees and wonders when his life became so complicated. And something's nagging at him; something that Merlin said and which he can't quite--

Arthur jerks upright as something bellows with a reverberating roar and the stone walls of Camelot castle tremble as though they were made of wood. "What is that?"

Beyond the jewelled-pane window, something roars, something flaps, something steams with a crackle of fire and water and smoke. Arthur glimpses leathern wings and glittering scales leaping for the sky as people scream and scatter. And the shouts of the guardsmen mingle with the sudden clatter of boot heels down stone stairs.

He whirls, intending to join his knights to defend Camelot, but when he turns to Morgana, her eyes are looking right through him. "He's free," she whispers, and there's a terrifying joy in her expression.

\--

"You kept a dragon under the castle? For twenty-five years?" Arthur stares at his father in disbelief.

So many secrets - so many lies. It's just the two of them here in Uthyr's chambers, where Arthur's found his father armoured up as though for war. The servants were dismissed; orders issued to the master of horse, the master of house, the seneschals of the knights.

"It was necessary," his father is saying. "The dragon represented everything evil about magic - power without restraint, no loyalties, no limits. As long as it was free, Camelot would never have become what it is today - it wouldn't be the kingdom it is! As long as it still is free, Camelot will never be safe."

"Father, going up against that is...it's insane!" Arthur saw the size of the dragon as its wings churned the air with thunderous downbeats, clearing the castle and the bailey, the town and the sky, winging its way north. It was big enough to eat a man whole without ever needing to chew. The span of those wings would stretch longer than a half-dozen horses.

And yes, Arthur felt a cold fear in his heart as he watched it fly away.

It matches the current, terrifying understanding that his father means to ride out to meet the dragon. Without Arthur.

"Listen to me, Arthur. I have dealt with this beast - this magic - before. I'll deal with it now."

"You're--" Arthur can't bring himself to say the words that hover on his lips, _too old._ He's seen his father nearly every day for the length of his life, both as parent and as liege lord, and never truly noticed the way his father's hair greyed through the years, never thought about what it meant that his father was growing older.

He thinks about it now. If Arthur's father dealt with the dragon once before, it was years ago, when the king was a younger man.

Uthyr's not young anymore.

But he's still the king.

Pale eyes pin Arthur like a spear through the shoulder. "I'm the one responsible for this," he says, and before that paternal, authoritarian will, Arthur must give way. "I'll deal with the dragon. You will hold Camelot together in my absence. Clean up the bailey, let the people know that our rule still holds sway."

"And what do I tell them? What you've told me?" It's little enough in the face of the questions that well up in him - questions that he knows he won't get an answer to, not yet, not now.

"Tell them..." Uthyr hesitates. "Tell them that evil is abroad in the land again, and that we will resist it to our last breath for Camelot."

"And when you come back?" Arthur won't think of the alternative. He's a man grown, responsible and capable; but a part of him fears the world without his father.

"When I return, we'll talk."

It's not the promise he wants, but he knows it's all the promise he'll get from his father.

They ride out in the midafternoon, a great and gallant parade of king, knights, guards, and Gaius. Arthur watches from the top of the courtyard stairs and wishes he was the one going out to fight the dragon instead of commanded to stay behind.

"That might have been me."

He turns his head in surprise at Morgana's statement. "Going out to fight the dragon?"

"No. Chained up for use of magic. Denied light and freedom for nothing more than being what I am."

"You don't know that's what it was imprisoned for."

"You don't know that it's not." Her gaze is frank, almost fey in its intensity. She's changed without Guinevere to anchor her, become someone that Arthur isn't sure he knows. "Uthyr has his reasons, I'm sure. But your father's no saint, Arthur. He'll do as pleases him, whatever that'll be, and both of us know the penalty for crossing him."

Imprisonment. Banishment. Death.

Maybe it's a simple issue for Morgana. Her abilities means it's hide her magic or flee for her life.

Arthur finds it more complicated. Maybe magic isn't wholly evil as his father's always claimed; but it can be used for evil - doesn't that make it dangerous?

\--

By the fourth day of his father's absence, Arthur's feeling stir-crazy.

The bailey is being repaired under the watchful eye of the castle stonemason and the captain of the guard. The land and livelihood of the people almost manages itself, but for the occasional storm or raider, neither of which have the decency to make an appearance during a time when Arthur could do with a distraction. He trains the remaining knights in the mornings, drilling them in various formations that might be of use against a wind-borne enemy. In the afternoons, he sits in his father's seat of judgement and hears the petitioners who bring their grievances before him.

But there's a dragon out there, out among his people, and Arthur's stuck here at home, chained to a castle and a responsibility he can't shirk

Merlin brings him his meals, and Morgana's taken to keeping him company at mealtimes and sometimes in the judgement seat, while her maid hovers in the background, eyes downcast over clasped hands.

The conversation is not easy, but at least there are no more secrets between them.

"Then how are we supposed to keep magic users within the law?" Arthur demands of her one lunchtime, taken in his quarters because he doesn't want to deal with the court anymore. "If we can't expect obedience to our laws..."

"What if magic users are already within the law - except for having magic?" The jingle and clank of Merlin sanding Arthur's chainmail by kicking it around in a bag of sand punctuates his manservant's breathless voice. "It's using magic that puts them outside the law."

"Right now, it is. But if magic is lawful, what uses of magic are permitted? Oh, monsters and magical beasts that threaten the people - of course. But lighting candles? Warming food? Fetching slippers?"

Morgana laughs. "Who'd use magic to fetch slippers?"

It so happens that Arthur's looking at Merlin at that moment; sees shadows of embarrassment slide off his manservant's face. And something settles inside him, like the click as a door latch falls into place.

"Merlin..."

"Arthur?"

"Have you ever used magic to fetch slippers?"

"No, sire. Of course not."

"Because he doesn't have slippers." Morgana leans in. "Do you, Merlin?"

"Uh, no. May I be--?"

"Sit." Arthur indicates the bench, and watches as Merlin takes a very wary seat. It's not just him this time, it's Morgana, too - and, oddly, of the two of them, he gets the feeling Merlin's more afraid of Morgana. "The Sídhe knew your name."

"I did point out that they knew all our--"

"You knew about Morgana's magic."

"Probably longer than I did, since he was bringing me sleeping draughts from Gaius for a long time before I understood I was being drugged." There's a hint of bite in the honey of Morgana's voice, and Arthur watches as his manservant doesn't quite squirm.

_Interesting._

"You asked for relief from your nightmares. Gaius just provided--"

Arthur cuts off Merlin's babbling. "You'll never wield a sword as anything other than a club."

Both Merlin and Morgana stare at him - at the non-sequitur - but Arthur looks only at Merlin. "You said '_I'll never use a sword as anything more than a club; someone else will never use magic._' Which suggests that someone else will never use magic...but you will. And have."

Arthur can say it with certainty through the growing anger in his gut. Merlin's worked for him for three years, and never said or hinted a thing. It's not the magic he's angry about. Magic is a problem under his father, yes, but Arthur knows loyalty when he sees it and he knows without a shred of doubt that Merlin is loyal to him. It's the deceit.

It's the fact that he doesn't really know the young man who sits on the bench, his hands folded in his lap, his demeanour no longer that of the cheerful, ingenuous servant but of someone who's something...more.

"I wanted to tell you," Merlin says after a moment. Earnest, as only Merlin can do. "It wasn't a matter of trust."

Arthur's about to ask what it _was_ a matter of, when there are shouts from the courtyard.

Someone shouting for _him_.

He gets up so fast, his chair skids across the floor and his goblet tips over, but he barely notices as he strides to the window to look out at the open courtyard below.

What he sees is are the riders whose scarlet cloaks are seared and torn from a dragon's breath and a dragon's claws.

What he sees are the handful of men where nearly two dozen rode out.

What he sees is the man being handed down from another horse, his body battered, his leg bound with a scarlet cloak that's even now being stained a deeper scarlet.

Arthur turns on his heel and runs for the courtyard.

\--

His father's unconscious but alive - at least for the moment. Waxen and limp, with none of the spirit and passion that he's always associated with Uthyr Pendragon, but alive. A dozen guards carry him into the main hall and Arthur bends to Gaius, who follows behind, limping and shaken. "What happened?"

"The dragon tore his leg and it's grown infected. I'll need Merlin, sire. And peace if your father's to survive this."

"You'll have both." He'll deal with Merlin and his breach of trust later.

"You'll need me, too. I can help." Morgana steps up, and when Gaius glances from Morgana to Merlin to Arthur with nothing more than a raised eyebrow, he gets a resigned shrug from Merlin in answer.

Is there anyone here other than Arthur who didn't know of this...this conspiracy of magic? He's beginning to wonder. "Fine. I don't need to remind any of you to be careful, do I?"

He leaves them to it. Gaius and Merlin will look after his father, Morgana will commandeer the servants as necessary; what Arthur wants now is answers, and he's only going to get them from the men-at-arms and knights who went with his father.

The guards reek of draconic musk, their undergarments rancid with sweat and dirt. Arthur gives them permission to take over the bathing house and compensation for the servants, and then takes Sir Leon aside.

"Where was it?"

"Up in the mountain reaches along the north-west pass. I swear, it was waiting for us, sire." Leon's eyes are dark with guilt and the fear that he's failed his king. "We'd expected destruction, but the villagers only said their herds were nervous and they were missing a few sheep. It took us by surprise - ambushed us as the sun was setting. It had the King within moments, and we tried to beat it off, but our weapons did nothing against it - arrows, spears, even swords when we managed to get some knights close enough."

"Didn't even scratch it?"

"Not that we saw, my Lord. They bounced off, or just scraped along the hide. Sir Galenor got a good thump in with his shield and the dragon let the king go long enough for us to get him away, but his leg was...well...you saw it, sire. Gaius could only do so much, and the king wasn't going to do any better."

Leon holds himself stiffly; the man's exhausted, he'd sag if he dared in the presence of his Prince. Arthur claps him on the shoulder. "You chose right, Leon. Thank you for bringing my father back."

"I've left half the men at the nearby village to keep an eye out on the dragon, but it didn't attack after the king was wounded. It was...it was like it was only interested in my Lord Uthyr."

Considering his father was the one to imprison the dragon for twenty-five years, Arthur isn't surprised.

"Get yourself cleaned up and fed and rested, and see to the men who were with you. Camelot lies in your debt."

Arthur turns away, expecting the man to excuse himself and head for the baths. But Leon doesn't move and Arthur turns back and catches an uneasy expression on the knight's face. " Leon?"

"My lord Uthyr's leg, sire. It was all torn up." Leon wets his lips and looks down at his hands. "That first night we got away, we didn't think he'd make it. Gaius made us stop in the forest and was tending to it, but he said it was probably hopeless and the king wouldn't last the journey."

"Go on."

"Sire... We set a watch - I swear it - but I woke when the moon was high and found...a woman tending to the king's leg. Like she'd just walked past the sentries and into the camp. She didn't seem afraid of me, either, and I challenged her presence."

Foreboding prickles at Arthur's nape. "Did she say anything?"

"That the dolorous wound would never heal, and...and to tell the Prince that the sword and he who had it made would be necessary to kill he who made it. And then...everything became a blur to me and it was morning and she was gone. And the king...he wasn't fully healed, but he was awake and strong enough to make the journey back."

A woman. Magical from the sound of it. Arthur frowns. "Did you recognise her? The woman you saw in the forest?"

Leon's expression is steady. "It was the Lady Morgana's maidservant, sire. The one who went missing last summer."

\--

"So she's still alive." Morgana's voice quivers, and she quickly turns and walks to the window and stands there, looking out, her knuckles pressed against her mouth.

Arthur glances over at Merlin, who's sitting at the table, staring at the flickering candle. In the dark blue of his eyes, the flame gleams gold, and, once again, Arthur is hit with the conviction that he doesn't really know this manservant who became one of his most trusted friends somewhere in the last few years.

"She healed father enough so Gaius and the others could get him home."

Morgana turns from the window. "Maybe she'd have done better to let him die."

There's a hard note to her voice, and Arthur's again confronted with the difficulties of his foster-sister's relationship with his father these last few years. Given the magic he now knows she has, he thinks he might understand her bitterness better.

Merlin shifts. "She bears Uthyr no resentment for her father's death. She never did."

"No. It was never in Gwen's nature to hold a grudge." Morgana exhales and turns fully around. "So what do you plan to do, Arthur?"

"About Guinevere?"

"About her and everything else."

The casement frames her, dark dress, dark lips, dark hair, white skin; stark beauty and stark bitterness etched into her every line. In contrast, Merlin is sober and still, almost subdued, like someone held in a dream, but the gaze that meets Arthur's is patient and easy with a measuring clarity. Merlin's no longer hiding; he's just waiting.

Looking at them, Arthur wonders if it's the yawning awareness of his father's mortality that's changed his perspectives of them, or just the awareness of their magic.

He wonders how he managed to miss or ignore it for so long.

"Keep running the kingdom." It's an easy answer for a not-so-easy situation. "Determine how long before Father's back on his feet..."

"_The dolorous wound will never heal,_" Merlin rests his chin in his hands, and now the candle casts shadows in the hollows of his cheeks. "We tried closing the wound, but the edges fester. Gaius thinks the wound will eventually poison him." There's an apology in his eyes when he looks at Arthur. "The King won't be getting better."

That's what Arthur fears and doesn't dare say. He always knew the kingdom would come to him when his father died; he never thought it would be so _soon_. "Then there's still the dragon to deal with."

"_The sword and he who had it made will be necessary to kill he who made it_." It's Morgana's turn to look speculatively at Merlin. "Who had it made, Merlin? And why?"

Merlin sighs and puts his face down in his hands. "Shouldn't you be glad that the sword was made at all - especially if it's the only way to kill the dragon?"

Arthur leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. "How about we start with the question, _'What sword?_'"

They tease it out of him by turns; the sword forged by Tom the blacksmith that was intended for Arthur's hand, given strength and power by the dragon's fire at Merlin's request, and cast into the lake after Uthyr defeated the Black Knight to prevent the sword from being used against magic.

"But it will be," Arthur says when Merlin finishes. "Used against magic. Because the dragon has to die."

A rustle of fabric heralds Morgana's approach to the table. "The dragon had a reason to resent Uthyr. Captured and held for twenty-five years..."

"Morgana, a reason is not the same as 'just cause'."

"I don't think you'll find anyone to argue that twenty-five years of prison for simply being who they are isn't 'just cause'. Merlin and I would be dead had Uthyr known about us - and not for treasonous acts; simply for using magic."

"Magic is dangerous. I agree with my father on that." Arthur sits back in his chair, frowning as both Merlin and Morgana stare at him. "Don't be stupid. I'm not going to order either of you killed - I'm not my father. But there have to be rules for magic-users, as much as for ordinary people - if not more. And they have to be willing to abide by them or face the consequences."

"And that includes the dragon." Merlin understands at least. "It serves its own interests; it always did. We just happened to be part of it."

"We?"

"Us. The dragon said that our destinies were linked - that you needed me to become the king you could be " A mischievous blue gleams in his gaze. "You don't think I'd have put up with the arse you used to be otherwise, do you?"

Momentarily stunned into silence, Arthur opens his mouth to say something cutting, and is forestalled as someone clatters up the outside stairs at a dead run.

"Sire?" The servant seems startled to find Morgana and Merlin here, but he rallies after a moment. "The King is awake and asking for you."

\--

If his father's wound is mortal, no-one could prove it by his demeanour. He lies propped up in the great bed, pillows behind him, the coverlet heaped with blankets. Yet Uthyr spares little time for small talk.

"I promised to tell you about the dragon."

Accustomed to his father's brusqueness, Arthur holds back his concern. "It's not necessary."

"I think it is. You should know why...why I imprisoned it."

Because it was magical - like Merlin, like Morgana. Because it couldn't help being what it was, any more than Arthur can help being blond, or a good swordsman, or the son of Uthyr Pendragon. Maybe he could put mud through his hair, never take up a sword again, or renounce his birthright, but would he still be who he is?

His father's eyes drift away across the room, now emptied of everyone - even Gaius and Morgana and Merlin. "It was because of your mother."

Of all the answers Arthur expected, this was not one of them, and it steals his breath. "My mother? What does she have to do with the dragon?"

"For many years after our marriage, we hoped for children, but Igraine never quickened. A queen is allowed many failings, but only one is unforgivable: the failure to produce an heir." The pain in his father's voice resonates in Arthur's gut. Whatever else can be said of his father, there's little doubt in his mind that he loved Arthur's mother, and that Igraine's 'failure' meant little to the love her husband held for her.

Arthur wonders what it would have been like to grow up in that love.

"You had me."

"Yes. But before that... We tried everything. Herbal remedies, common superstitions, anything Gaius could suggest... In the end, we tried magic."

"You tried..."

"Igraine consulted a sorceress by the name of Nimueh. She made us a bargain. She would magically grant us the ability to have a child - a son of ours in exchange for the right to practise magic openly. She said there was no great danger; that there was a price in these things, but that it was taken care of. And so we consented. Your mother wanted a child so much..."

His father's eyes drift from Arthur's face to stare into the darkness.

"What happened?"

But he already knows this story. "Nimueh tricked us. She never told us the price for one life would be another to take its place."

"And my mother died in childbirth."

An exchange of lives by the Counter at the Scroll - Arthur Pendragon for Igraine de Bois.

When he speaks, his voice is rough. "Given that I cost my mother her life, I'm surprised you didn't hate me."

A shadow crosses his father's face. "You're my son. I couldn't hate you. And the fault wasn't yours." The lines about Uthyr's mouth deepen. "It was the witch's deception - her lie that caused Igraine's death. I set out to destroy her and her followers; to wipe magic from the face of Camelot."

Instead, he'd only sent magic into hiding. "And the dragon was part of it?"

"The dragon was an uncertain ally. I convinced Nimueh it would be safest to hold it in the caves beneath the castle with magic, until we could bring it around to our thinking."

"Then you betrayed her."

He's careful not to sound condemning, but his father reacts all the same. "I regret nothing of what I've done, Arthur! Sorcery _is_ dangerous - unlimited power, unfettered ambition - and Nimueh was all of that and more. And the dragon... The dragon is the same. Camelot will never prosper until it's dead."

A fine sweat covers his father's face, the candlelight casting clear shadows along the browbone and cheekbones, making hollows of his eyes and beneath his cheeks. Arthur is suddenly minded of Merlin's eyes earlier tonight, gleaming by the light of the candle, unearthly. "Father..."

"Promise me you'll kill the dragon."

The request has undertones of finality that steals Arthur's breath from his chest. He hesitates, and his hand is covered by a grip no less powerful for being that of a dying man.

"I promise," he says.

\--

It's not as simple as riding out to fight the dragon.

Nothing's simple anymore.

Arthur stays with his father through dinner that night, although he leaves for a while to consult with Gaius, Sir Leon, and the captain of the palace guard to arrange for a messenger trail to be set up out to where the dragon was last seen. When he returns, Merlin's waiting outside his father's door.

"Morgana's within," he says. "Have you made the arrangements?"

"A dozen men are gearing up to ride out. They're under orders not to engage with the dragon, just to avoid loss of life - theirs or the villagers. Leon left a handful of men to watch over the area once they realised they could make better time with father riding..." Arthur presses his back to the wall beside Merlin and glances at the slim, slight man who's never been far from him these last four years. "The dragon's going to be a problem."

"It always was."

"I meant, for the villagers in the area. It has to be dealt with." Arthur doesn't have the time to see to it personally right now. Is that why his father put a sword in his hand and set him at the head of the knights of Camelot? To be his strong right hand, able to do the things that the king couldn't physically do?

There are things he's never had to think about before - not just the things that his father did, but other things. Things like the need to have someone to move where Arthur can't, to fight the battles the king can't fight. A champion he can trust to do his bidding and to treat the people who make up Arthur's kingdom with honour.

And it occurs to Arthur that he's already thinking of the throne as his. His father's not even halfway dead yet, and he's thinking of Camelot as his.

His mouth is suddenly bitter with disgust.

"You're looking ahead." Merlin's watching him. "You have to do that now."

Anger is a relief in which Arthur can take familiar refuge. "And you know so much about kingship? About ruling?"

The expressive face shadows, even as the blue gaze looks through Arthur. "I know the king you're supposed to be."

"And if I decide I don't want to be that king?" Once, Arthur wished for a great destiny. Now, facing the death of his father, the prospect of ruling the kingdom within his sight, he's not sure he wants it anymore.

"Water doesn't get to decide where it's going to flow, Arthur. You're already that king in ways you can't imagine."

That's a little too deep for him, a little too confusing. Arthur lets his anger go, frustrated but not willing to take it out on Merlin. Well, not entirely. "I wasn't that much of an arse," he mutters.

"Try looking at it from my point of view."

"If I recall, you weren't a very good servant back then, either."

"I learned." Merlin grins, sidewise and almost confidential. "We both did."

The grin is both infuriating and reassuring. Smiling, Merlin doesn't look like a sorcerer, let alone the powerful warlock the dragon allegedly prophesied he was - not that Arthur's really known that many sorcerers before they were executed or slain. He _does _looks like he's about to say more when the door opens to show Morgana.

"My father?"

"Sleeping. But if you want to go in, I doubt anyone will gainsay you."

He grimaces at her before he goes in. She's spoken the truth; his father's eyes are closed and he seems to be sleeping peacefully.

"Arthur?" Or maybe not.

He looks down on the familiar face in the curtained shadows. "Father? You should be resting."

"And I will." One hand reaches out; Arthur hurries to take it before he has to watch it shake. It seems whatever strength his father had earlier has since waned, leaving him weary and drawn. "I... I wanted to tell you that I am proud of you. No father could have asked for a better son; no king could have asked for a more loyal servant."

"Father--"

"No. Listen to me. You have been everything that your mother and I dreamed of seeing in our son. I'm sorry for not handing you a kingdom without the stain of magic on it. That was always my hope - that you wouldn't have to face the troubles I've seen because of magic."

"You've done so much," Arthur says, and it's not a lie. His father _has_ done much in his cause against magic; even if it wasn't _well_ done. His father's choices weren't his; won't be his when the time comes. "And the kingdom's not mine yet."

"No." A faint smile touches Uthyr's face, and his lids droop. "Not yet."

Still, as Arthur bids his father goodnight, he wonders how long before that 'not yet' becomes 'now'.

\--

The guard strides into the hall where Arthur is poring over maps of the dragon-infested area.

"Sire! One of our riders is glimpsed along the northern road!"

Arthur's up from the table in an instant, ignoring the fate of the maps that slip and slide out from beneath this fingers to flutter to the floor. "One of the men you left near the dragon village?"

"Seems to be young Pendryn, sire. But he's got another rider with him - not one of ours. They were riding hard when we saw them, they should reach the castle very soon."

There's a shout from the walls outside. "_Riders spotted_!"

With barely a nod of dismissal for the panting guard - the man must have run from the town gates - Arthur is out of the hall and heading for the courtyard. News from the northern road - sorely needed news, at that since there's been nothing for days. Which seems impossible given that not only are there villages, farms, foresters, and travellers who should have encountered it, but that Arthur has knights and guards roaming that part of the realm, keeping an eye out for trouble.

Until today, there's been nothing.

"Who's the spare rider?" Merlin wonders out aloud. Barely a step behind Arthur, he's been a near-constant companion, only going out to fetch things for Gaius as the old physician tries to ease the king's pain. "What news could need two messengers?"

"Doubling."

"Huh?"

Arthur strides out the great doors and down the stairs into the courtyard where two horses have just skidded to a stop. "Double the riders if the message is important - something they don't want lost. If one man's attacked or taken, the other might still get the message through. Doubling."

"Oh." Merlin's sound of understanding trails off as the two riders clamber down with the slightly stiff gait of men who've spent too long in the saddle. "Is that...?"

"Lancelot."

The last time Arthur Pendragon laid eyes on Lancelot, former knight of Camelot, it was in the middle of a forest, across a fire, with a woman between them. Then, she sat beside Arthur's rival. Now Guinevere is gone - taken by the Sídhe - and there's only the two of them to deal with each other.

"Sire." No one can fault his manners, anyway. The unthinking grace stings an old envy in Arthur, soon squashed. "I bring news of the dragon - it's whereabouts and hiding place." He looks from Arthur to Merlin and back to Arthur again, hesitant. "Your father the king...?"

"Still alive." For how long, Arthur doesn't know. "Come inside. You'll give a better report with food and drink in you." Both Lancelot and the guardsman look exhausted and there's nothing to be gained from talking out here.

"Begging your pardon, m'Lord, but I'll take young Pendryn down to the barracks. He says it's not his report to make."

He nods his permission and arranges for the guardsman to get the wine and meat from Arthur's own portions, then leads the way inside.

"How are you?" Merlin asks softly, falling in alongside Lancelot as they make their way up to the hall. "It's been a while."

"I found employment with the du Lac of Parlepont. They were in need of men at arms after a bandit war erupted along their northern borders."

"You were involved in that?" Arthur's surprised. Parlepont sits on Camelot's south-eastern borders and the bandit war naturally drifted into the edges of Camelot's forest.

"Yes. My experience in those forests came to be of use, after all." Lancelot's smile is brief and tight as they enter the hall and he is gestured to a seat, and Arthur feels a pang of envy as he sits and calls for food and wine.

He pushed his father to run a few campaigns against the bandits in that quarter, and saw a little action. Not much; Uthyr was intent on preserving Camelot's borders and integrity, not in meeting his neighbours halfway.

"So if you were working for the du Lac, what are you doing back in Camelot?" Only Merlin could make such a blunt question sound guileless - probably because it _is_ guileless when voiced by Merlin. "Not that we're not glad to have you back, of course."

"The du Lac wished me to stay; I asked for leave to return to Camelot." Lancelot hesitates and looks to Arthur, his chin lifted, his eyes calm. "I wished to see the Lady Gwen again. But, as I was riding the circuit through the north, I heard about the dragon and the king. So I made a diversion."

The cynic in Arthur says that the other man wanted a chance to prove himself before returning to Camelot. The prince in him points out that Lancelot proved himself to Guinevere when he rescued her from Hengist.

It doesn't matter anymore. "Guinevere's gone."

"Gone? Not...?"

Merlin answers the unfinished question. "The Sídhe took her last summer."

It shakes him, Arthur can see that before he looks away, leaving Merlin to the explanations. He knows how Lancelot's feeling - to hold onto a hope for so long, only to have it torn away.

There was so little to it - just a kiss and talk of tomorrows; nothing beyond a hope and a maybe. _Perhaps when you are king..._ And now it looks like Arthur's going to be king sooner than he thought, but Guinevere's not here to see him become the king she believed he could be.

And Arthur won't let himself dwell on the thought that Guinevere could just as easily have brought the message to him, here in Camelot, and chose not to.

A tentative knock comes at the doors of the hall and, expecting the servants bringing food, Arthur calls for them to enter.

It's not the servants. It's Gaius, with Morgana in tow.

Halfway to the table, Gaius goes down on one knee. "Sire."

Morgana detours around the kneeling Gaius, around the table, and Arthur takes her hands in his. Her skin is ice cold, like his gut, like his heart - and unlike the tears Morgana sheds, splashing hotly down over their fingers.

"My father..."

The old physician lifts his head, and tears gleam in his eyes, echoing in the armour of the guards that file in and kneel behind him. "The king is dead. Long live the king."





	2. Chapter 2

Days later - busy, frantic days later - a light knock at Arthur's door is all the warning given before Merlin walks in carrying a tray of food. "You're going to eat," his manservant says as Arthur pulls on a jacket with rough disdain for the niceties of its cut or colour. He's a ruler, not a clothes horse, and it doesn't matter what he wears, people have to be polite to him anyway.

"I haven't the time. I'm due to meet Lord Godfric of Olverstone at midday."

"Morgana's flirting with both Lord Godfric and his son, and she's roped Lancelot into charming Ilvessa. I've brought you your lunch and you're going to eat it before you leave this room."

"Has anyone ever said that you fuss like a mother hen?" But Arthur sits with something like relief as he begins to slice up the roasted meats on the plate. In the last week he's learned not to fight the quiet moments, but to just breathe amidst the chaos his life has become.

A king has little time to himself as it is. This king has barely enough time to even think between the matters of his father's funeral, his own coronation, the shifting morass of the kingdom's political and social allegiances, and, of course, the matter of the dragon.

If it weren't for Merlin and Morgana, Arthur would have gone mad by now and there'd be no king on Camelot's throne.

Arthur frowns as something Merlin said catches his attention after the face. "Wait a moment. _Lancelot's_ charming Lady Ilvessa?"

"He's doing very well. With all that innate nobility and politeness of his, they don't realise he's a commoner at all. It'll be rather amusing when they do find out - at least, Morgana thinks it will be."

"And Morgana's amusement is so important in these times!"

Merlin's honest enough about his own motives. "If it stops her from taking revenge against me, I'm all for it."

Arthur snorts at that.

Knowing his foster-sister, she's probably just saving her revenge for later. There's more opportunity for entertainment in the court's politics right now, and Morgana's becoming very good at derailing a young man's attention when she chooses; just as Arthur's becoming very good at avoiding the daughters of the nobility being paraded in front of him like so much cattle before a prospective buyer.

It's not that he's opposed to marriage; he's just not willing to consider it at this moment. With his father not even interred in the crypts and a dragon on the loose in the north, he's got other things to think about.

"I'm going to rescind the rule against knighting commoners."

Merlin's smile is blinding. "I knew you would! He's too good not to be a knight of Camelot. It'll have to wait until after your coronation, of course--"

"Believe it or not, Merlin, I _do_ know the protocols of these things."

"Sorry. I sometimes forget that--"

"That I'm not a complete fool?" Arthur demands dryly, caught between amusement and exasperation - still two common emotions when dealing with Merlin. "A noble idiot? A royal prat?"

Merlin smirks. "Well, you're still a royal prat, but two out of three isn't bad." He puts up a hand in grinning defence as Arthur lifts a chunk of potato on his fork and threatens to throw it at him. "Camelot could do with more knights like him."

"He's not a knight yet. I'm still going to make him face me before he's knighted."

"You already did that."

"I'm doing it again. If he's good enough, I'll knight him."

"But you won't let him face the dragon?"

What Lancelot had to add to their knowledge of the dragon was the location of the dragon's hiding place, high and solitary in the mountains. He'd intended to come to give the news to the palace, intended to see Guinevere one last time before he returned to face the dragon alone.

To give the man his due, he's not a coward. Just an idiot for thinking he could go up against the dragon without anything other than his sword. Arthur forbade him to stir out of the city, and Lancelot, being Lancelot and not Arthur, has obeyed his king.

"I can't afford to lose any more of my knights to the dragon." They lost six knights to the dragon - dead, maimed, or injured - not even counting his father. Six men who won't fight again.

"But you'll go up against it yourself?"

"Merlin, I can't ask my knights to do what I won't."

"Camelot can't afford to lose its king, either."

Arthur sets down his knife and stares pointedly at his manservant. "Then you'd better get me that sword back."

"Have you been working your way around to Excalibur all conversation?"

"Merlin, I've been working my way around to it all _week_. The dragon needs to be executed for what it's done. If I can't rule it - if it won't be ruled by me - I can't let it live to oppose me." It's not something Arthur wants to do, but if he has to kill it, he will.

There has to be justice.

The younger man's expression is troubled, the dark cap of hair brushing Merlin's temples as he bows his head. "It made the sword, you know. Of the old power."

"It killed my father."

This isn't a battle of wills but a statement of facts. And in the end, Merlin sighs. "All right. But not until after you're crowned. Morgana says the sword was made to be wielded by a king."

"Morgana says a lot of things."

"Well, you should listen to this one."

\--

Arthur comes down to the knights' training yards in the midmorning, where Sir Leon is looking over the nobleman's sons swordwork.

A cluster of seasoned knights stand to the side, observing and making comments loud enough for the young men to hear. Beyond them, Morgana and her 'embroidery' preside over a cluster of young noblewomen who chatter and squeal and clutch each other with every advantage gained in the stroke of a sword.

"How are they?"

"Terrible, sire." Leon's mouth lifts in a wry half-smile. "You could take most of them hopping on one leg."

A swift glance across the assembled noblemen illustrates Leon's point - their technique is sloppy, their reflexes sluggish, and their tactics non-existent. Arthur's gaze drifts across the swording field to rest on the man who stands by the sword rack, his long hair tied back in a simple queue, his arms folded over his leather jerkin as he watches the swordplay with a keen eye.

Arthur crosses over to stand beside him.

"Sire."

"Had a go yet this morning?"

"Not yet."

"Good." Arthur claps him on the shoulder as he heads for the armoury. "You can go up against me."

He ignores the oohs and aahs of the crowd, Sir Leon's muttered grumble, and Lancelot's initial protest as he lets the chain mail settle over the padded gambeson and smooths the dragon surcoat over it. It feels like days since he's had the opportunity to train, to fight, to be simply _Arthur_ and not _sire_.

And this has more to it than just a chance to get out and practise his swordfighting. If Arthur has his way, Lancelot will be the last knight of Camelot to prove himself against Arthur Pendragon. Whether or not Lancelot defeats him or not isn't the point; the point will be to show that there's a new order of knights - ones whose worth is defined by their skills in the field and their chivalry to those of all ranks and background, not their bloodlines.

They face each other, armed, and weaponed, and a space clears for them in the training yards.

Arthur waits until he's sure Lancelot is ready, then attacks.

Blades cross with a ringing noise and the fight has begun. The other man defends, neat and spare in his movements, with the swift reflexes that Arthur remembers from the first time they fought - with broomsticks. If he was diffident then, Lancelot's learned confidence in his abilities since.

As he battles against the other man, Arthur thinks they might even be matched.

If he had the energy to spare, he'd grin. It's been years since they fought against each other, and a man's fighting style changes with experience, confidence, and time. What skill the other man possessed all those years ago has been honed, just as Arthur's skills with sword and tactics have been honed.

Cheers and gasps follow their every move as they retreat and fall back, advance and defend. It's a dance, the like of which Arthur hasn't felt the pleasure of in a long time.

And in the end, it's a matter of endurance.

He's been too long in meetings with his father's advisors, with the lords and ladies of Camelot's holdings; and although he's honed his skill, Lancelot's been fighting bandits, who are considerably more desperate than any of Camelot's knights.

A twist of the wrist, and his guard is thrown wide; the tip of Lancelot's sword is pointed at his heart, and the other man meets his gaze with a steady, earnest look.

Arthur cedes the fight with a huff amidst the cheers of the watching crowd. "I suppose I should be glad you didn't try to trick me this time," he says pointedly, clapping a hand to Lancelot's shoulder as they head for the sword rack.

"I'm glad I didn't have to, sire." But there's a soft amusement in the accented tones. If Arthur's grown up in the intervening years; Lancelot's grown into his skin. They know who they are now.

"Call me Arthur."

Dark brows rise. "Sire?"

He shrugs, trying to be nonchalant about it. "Merlin does."

"With respect, sire, Merlin's known you longer."

"Am I going to have to make it an order?"

The serious face breaks into a smile. "No, sire."

Merlin bustles up, unhampered by the formal politeness of the young lords and ladies hovering genteelly beyond the practise yards, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on Arthur, Lancelot, or both. "So?"

"So?" Arthur returns innocently.

"Are you going to knight him or not?"

"Sire?"

Arthur rolls his eyes as Merlin, then turns to the stunned Lancelot. "I need someone I can trust to be my champion. You're the best fighter I've come across in years."

And...the man walked away from the woman he loved because he felt another man could give her the life she deserved. Arthur respects that sacrifice, even if it stings to know that Guinevere would have chosen Lancelot over him if the man had stayed.

"Sire, a knight must be nobly-born. That was your father's law."

"Nobility isn't just about birth." And trust isn't just about those who were allied with his father. His father's allies were just that - his father's allies.

Arthur's rule won't be Uthyr's. And he needs people who can share his vision.

Morgana will - at least, Arthur hopes she will once he explains it to her; she never seemed to look beyond his father's death and her freedom from the constraints of keeping her magic hidden. Merlin does - or has his own vision of what Arthur could be. Guinevere would have.

Will Lancelot understand?

"Will you accept?"

Lancelot looks up at the towering walls of Camelot as though seeking a missing face among the watching women. Then he turns back and the belief that burns in his eyes is the answer Arthur wants. "I will. Si-- Arthur."

A rush of relief prompts Arthur's grin, and after a moment, the dark, tense features soften in an answering smile as their hands meet in a sealing grip.

\--

It's cold in the catacombs, but he tugs his cloak more firmly about his shoulders and breathes the dust of his ancestors.

A soft tread echoes through the arches, and the light swish of skirts rustles across the stone floor. Arthur doesn't look up. He hoped an hour or two down in the crypts by his father's tomb would keep most people at bay and grant him a measure of peace.

It has. It just doesn't keep Morgana away.

"Merlin says you're going after the dragon."

He's been expecting this conversation for the last couple of days now. That it hasn't come up yet is more a testament of just how busy their lives are, a constant storm of nobles, meetings, arrangements, condolences, congratulations. And Arthur's in the middle of it all, turning everywhere with nothing to hold onto.

"I promised father I would," he says, shifting on the cold stone. The low riser leading up to the tomb of _Sir Godfric of Marescot_ is only partly insulated against the cold by his cloak, but it gives an excellent view of the tomb of _Uthyr Pendragon, King of Camelot._

Someday, there'll be a tomb here that reads _Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot_, and maybe Arthur's son will sit in front of it and contemplate the crown he's about to inherit. Maybe one of his daughters will come and interrupt his peace just as he's relaxing out of sight of the court.

"Has it yet occurred to you that Uthyr reaped what he sowed with the dragon? Twenty-five years locked up for simply being magical--"

Arthur's considered this; with Merlin, by himself. He's thought about his answer many times in the last week. Now, he cuts through the gristle to reach the meat of the matter. "Would you be arguing for clemency if the dragon wasn't magical, Morgana?"

She's taken aback, but only momentarily. Nothing floors Morgana for long, certainly not this. "Would you be so hell-bent on revenge if it wasn't? Uthyr's dead, Arthur, but nothing can change that - not even going after the dragon. And it's been locked up for your lifetime - doesn't that require even a little mercy?"

He looks up at her by the light of the torches that flame steadily in the silent catacombs. "A death - for any reason - requires justice, Morgana."

"Justice? Or revenge?"

"I'm not going to renew the prohibition against magic. But I'm not going to turn a blind eye when it's used for evil, either."

"How long before you realise--?"

"No, Morgana." He stands and interrupts the start of her diatribe. The torch throws gold across her skin, lights fires in the dark of her hair, but it's just Morgana; he's known her nearly all his life. "How long before _you_ realise? This is not about magical or non-magical. The dragon is not you, Morgana. It's made its choices; it has to live by them."

"Or die by them?"

"Or die by them. As we all do." He indicates his father's tomb. "I'm not father, Morgana. Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm the same as him."

That stops her, if only for a moment. "I would never think you're the same as your father, Arthur."

"But you're accusing me of being over-zealous because the dragon's magical."

"And you aren't?"

"This isn't about magic; this is about the law."

"You're the king. You can change the law!"

"And I will regarding the use of magic. But that doesn't stop the need for the law to be fair, no matter who it's dealing with."

Will she understand the need for him to start his rule differently - a rule of fairness and even-handedness? Will she understand his desire to hold himself to the same standards he requires of his knights, of his nobles, of his servants, of those who use magic, and those who don't? Will she understand who he needs to be as a king, for his own sake, as well as Camelot's?

_Saying it means nothing if your actions betray you._

"Someone who can use magic needs different rules, Arthur. We can't be bound by the same considerations that others have - not with this power. It's not right - not after what your father did to them."

And there, Arthur realises, lies the divide between them: Uthyr and magic, fairness and privilege, the law and justice.

The question of magic can be left for the moment; she won't like his decree, but he trusts her not to break faith with him. The lesser question of his father is something else - more pressing upon him with the coronation due in a matter of days. Whatever Uthyr's sins, Arthur doesn't intend to bear them - his shoulders aren't broad enough for that.

"And am I to pay for my father's sins for the rest of my life?"

Morgana smirks, thinking her argument won and never realising she's lost more than the argument. She reaches up to kiss him on the cheek. "Only the first few decades, I think."

As they leave behind the echoing chambers of death and dust, climbing the stairs to light and life, Arthur wonders to himself: if Morgana had understood the king he wants to be, would he have asked her to stand with him as he ruled?

\--

One day later, standing before the assembled nobles of Camelot in the great hall, Arthur Pendragon is crowned King of Camelot.

Banners hang down in bright colours, their coats of arms indicating the lords who swore loyalty to Uthyr. Today, each and every one of them will swear loyalty to him. Beneath the bright standards floats a sea of faces, their gazes considering, calculating, expectant as they look up at their new king.

Do they want the king Arthur Pendragon will be?

Arthur glances down to where Morgana, Merlin, and Lancelot stand in the front of the gathered throng, their gazes steady and hopeful upon him.

And he thinks of Guinevere.

He will be a king to make her proud of him, wherever she is, whatever she's doing. He doesn't have to, but he will.

It was Guinevere who first spoke to him of the king he could be. Even as Merlin strove to connect him with his better side; Guinevere challenged him to be a better man than his close-minded, parochial father.

She's not here to challenge him anymore; but with the help of the three standing before him, Arthur Pendragon intends to be a better man than his father and the best king he can be.

This he swears today.

"I, Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot, swear to rule with justice, to uphold the laws of Camelot, to protect the people of Camelot with my life and the lives of those sworn to me. I will stand against evil, cruelty, and oppression, in whatever form they come. I will shelter the good, the innocent, and the downtrodden, whether serf or freeborn, commoner or noble, magical or unmagical. I will be king to all those who acknowledge me and keep my laws, but I will be justice and penalty to those who break them.

"This I, Arthur Pendragon, swear to you, my people. So it will be."

"_As it shall be."_ The response swells through the hall - a mighty affirmation that blends into a great cheer rising up from many throats, and Arthur stands there and feels himself lost.

It's his literal crowning moment of glory, and yet this crowd of people only see what they want to see for themselves.

Until today, he never realised how lonely it was to be king; to feel the weight of responsibility on his shoulders alone - no father to arbitrate the final decision, and a kingdom's rise and fall on his choices.

He trusts Merlin and Morgana to be there for him - not only because they know him so well, but because they have a personal stake in his rule; Lancelot is still learning to trust, but Arthur has faith in the man's loyalty. Gaius will serve Arthur as he served Uthyr - and more, as a contact with many magical people who've otherwise vanished from the land. And Arthur can trust Sir Leon to continue to lead and train the knights of Camelot now that he can't.

Yet, as the nobles come up one by one to swear their oaths of allegiance to him, Arthur wishes for someone to see _him_, and not the king who's yet to be.

\--

They ride out of Camelot to the cheers and farewells of the townspeople who only know that the day is grey and miserable with the rains of spring, and that their king is young and handsome and riding out of the city with a dozen of his knights and a scarecrow dressed in a prince's cast-offs.

So perhaps 'scarecrow' is a little harsh. Merlin actually looks presentable in a set of Arthur's cast-offs, trimmed down for his lighter frame and simplified appropriate to a yeoman's status. He doesn't look quite so much like a waif who's just happened to find a good set of clothing and a horse.

"Do they have the faintest idea what we're doing?" Merlin inquires as they ride out, their cloaks flapping around and behind them as the people cheer and wave and hold their children up to see the King and his knights.

"Probably not." Arthur calls over the neck of his horse. He doesn't mention that _he_ hardly has any idea what they're doing, other than going to reclaim the sword.

Of course, this doesn't stop Merlin from commenting on it. "You don't know what we're doing either, do you?"

"I _am_ the king. You could show some courtesy." They're out the gates of the town now, and on the road to the forest, hooves clattering on the hard dust.

"I could."

"Merlin?"

"Yes, sire?"

"Shut up and don't fall off your horse."

"I haven't fallen off in ye--" Even while jouncing up and down on the back of the horse, Merlin catches Arthur's glare. "Right. Shutting up."

They take the trail that leads off through the forest, heading up into the hills, then down into the valley. After they reach the forest, Merlin takes point, his mount delicately picking its way through the leaves still slippery from the morning damp.

They're deep in the forests now, tending south, and the scrub is growing thicker, no longer just the trees and deadfalls on last year's leaves, but clumps of green that are already showing signs of budding and bloom. It's spring and the world is green and growing - a new season for a new king, said Gaius yesterday.

The new king feels at once old and jaded, and new and unnerved. Arthur does what's required of him as King, but there's a part of him that yearns to be just 'Prince Arthur' again, subject to his father the king.

It was simpler that way; maybe not always comfortable, not often right, but simpler.

Very few reports of the dragon have come - the occasional vanishing sheep and the sight of it flying over the villages in the north-east, but not much else. A surreptitious watch has been placed on the cave where Lancelot tracked it, but all knights, guards, and would-be heroes have been ordered to stay back. Arthur isn't going to throw more men at something that took out six knights and his father and never took a scratch - not until he has something he can be reasonably sure will work.

After twenty-five years chained, Arthur understands why the dragon did what it did; but he knows what he has to do, too. A king is dead, and the responsibilities of the kingdom lie on his shoulders now; he can't let that pass.

Maybe that's what Merlin means when he speaks about destiny - about the sense that there's something bigger waiting for him. Maybe this is Arthur's destiny, complete with kingdom, sword, and dragon.

Now all he needs is a fair maiden and all this will fit nicely into a ballad.

"We're close." Merlin points ahead to where the silvery shimmer of a lake can be seen through the trees and shrubbery, and reins in his horse. "We'll go on foot from here."

They tie up their horses and trek through the rich undergrowth to the edge of the lake, where the cloudy sky is reflected over forbidding evergreens and dark mountains that haven't yet lost their snowy tips.

Arthur treads carefully along the ground, still boggy from the spring rains, as Merlin clambers with the infernal agility of a man unhampered by chain mail or armour, although the cloak appears to be giving him some grief.

The slim dark-haired figure pauses at the edge of the lake.

"What is it? Can't you get it back?"

The needling is petty but satisfying. Merlin's exasperated look suggests he's tempted to say they're not going to get the sword after all, and they can all get back on their horses and ride home empty-handed. Arthur smirks a little, and Merlin turns back to the lake and lifts his hands.

He's seen his friend perform magic a lot in the last moon - small things, like doing several tasks at once, cleaning all Arthur's armour while taking away the dinner plates, for instance.

This is something else.

He doesn't recognise the incantation - how could he? But the tone... Arthur turns to look at his manservant and sees the blue eyes glow with gold, like a flame lit within Merlin's soul.

Water ripples, bubbles, churns. Like a tide dragging the water away from the shore, whatever sorcery Merlin's casting is clearing the lake, parting the water like the Biblical Moses parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross.

And in the middle of the lake...

A meadow. Lush and green and bright with the sun of full summer, gleaming with flowers that would rival the jewels of any woman in Camelot court, and the black block of stone that sits in the middle of it, a pedestal in which is thrust...

"Excalibur." Arthur takes one step towards the stone, then hesitates and looks back at Merlin, whose incantations have stopped and whose hands fall to his sides. "You did this?"

"No." From the expression on Merlin's face, this comes as a surprise to him, too. "I only threw the sword in the lake. This isn't something I recognise..."

He trails off.

Arthur turns and his breath catches in his throat.

There's a woman walking towards them down the long avenue of the land beneath the water, her gown pale against her skin, a few dark curls of hair hanging down her throat. Her arms are bare bronze in the golden light of an unearthly sun, and she moves with brisk grace, like a deer, yet unstartled.

"Sire."

"Guinevere." His throat is tight and closed as she pauses at the edge of the lake, one step from what would be the shore if the water weren't held back by Merlin's power. "I... You... Are you well?"

For a moment, she smiles, and in it are equal parts unbounded joy and an unspeakable grief, a strange expression on the face of someone they once knew and no longer do. Then she's just Guinevere again and almost smiling at him - that shy, hopeful smile that always made him want to see the full-blown version. "You've come for Excalibur; it's waiting for you as was foretold."

Then she holds out her hand, palm up for Arthur to take.

He's not sure what to expect when his fingers touch her, but her hand is soft and warm, human flesh. It's more than a little strange to feel her grip - so familiar - even as the smooth skin of her palm says that, whatever she does in the land of the Sídhe , she's no servant.

She draws him down into the lake bed, and he begins to follow her like a man in a dream.

"Gwen."

This smile is real - pure Guinevere, unguarded, untainted - and jealousy clutches uselessly at Arthur's heart as she answers. "Merlin." She steps to the very edge of the lake and her free hand reaches out to pull his head down for a kiss on his cheek. "It's good to see you again."

Arthur sees the other man's eyes close, sees the gleam of grief against the lowered lashes as Merlin murmurs, "We've missed you."

"I've missed you, too." Guinevere lets him go, and although Arthur can't see her expression, he can see the wonder on Merlin's as he looks down at her. "Your destiny found you."

"Not quite. Soon, I think." And his gaze raises to Arthur.

She looks back, and the smile softens, grows still. "Yes. Soon. You'd better come; there isn't much time for this..."

Arthur follows her like a man in a dream, her hand leading him past walls of water that show a kingdom beneath the waves, of beauty beyond human imagining or his own pitiful powers of description.

But his attention draws back to Guinevere, always.

"Are you going to talk to me at all?"

"What is there to say? You look well, my lord. The crown suits you."

She doesn't even look at him, and Arthur feels stung. He'd hoped for more from her than this careful politeness that has nothing of what they meant to each other at the end - nothing of what he thought might be between them.. Is this what they've become - strangers making meaningless conversation? Or was her friendliness all just showing the Prince what she thought he wanted to see?

Halfway down the path, standing in an impossible meadow, Arthur stops and his grip on her hand tightens, forcing her to turn and face him.

In the faery sunlight, unshed tears gleam on her lashes.

"Guinevere, why?"

Guinevere closes her eyes, as though in pain, and the gleaming trails of salt spill down her cheeks. Arthur reaches to wipe them away and she turns her head aside without looking, leaving his hand hovering over her cheek. "Don't make this difficult, my lord."

"How could it get more difficult than..." His own emotions choke him and he tightens his grip on the hand in his. There's nothing to say but, "Camelot isn't the same without you."

Her lashes rise, and the tears glitter on their dark wave like tiny diamonds. "I'm not the same without Camelot, either, sire." He feels her fingers against his cheek, such a light touch to burn like fire. He turns his head into her touch and watches her expression soften.

"Come back."

The hand drops. "It's not that simple." And her eyes flicker beyond him, back to the edge of the lake, where Merlin and the knights are watching. "You need to claim the sword, sire."

Her fingers lace with his as they walk through the water, and as they approach the stone, Arthur suddenly thinks of a cathedral - the gleaming crystal of the land beneath the lake, the dark columns of the firs on the lake shores, the pale-tipped mountains looming high into the sky, yearning for the heavens.

"Merlin said he just threw the sword into the lake."

"And thought he could just part the waters and send you in to fetch it?" He can't see her face, but he can hear her amusement. "The Land Under Wave found it - the _Tír fo Thuinn_. They saw the power of Excalibur and took it to hold against misuse."

They draw close to the stone - a great black basalt thing in which Excalibur is sheathed to the hilt.

"How do they know I won't misuse it?"

And she looks back at him with solemn eyes. "I told them you wouldn't." And he sees in her face the trust that always humbled him - the belief that he was better than the arrogant prat he could be in his worse moments.

That trust has a weight, Arthur discovers, and it's both a comfort that he still has it and terrifying in the possibility that he doesn't deserve it. "I won't disappoint you."

Guinevere holds his gaze. "I know."

Then she steps back and the sunlight picks out bronze in the black of her curls, a faery princess in a faery land. "Arthur Pendragon, can you read the stone?"

He looks down at the pillar from which the sword protrudes - thrust in at an angle, as though waiting for someone to draw it. And as he stares at the blank surface, gold letters appear, as though carved in the stone and gilded "Yes."

"What does it say?"

His Latin is atrocious, as Morgana accused, but Arthur doesn't need book learning to read this; "_If thy heart fails thee, trust not in me._"

"Then draw Excalibur if you can."

He sets his right hand to the hilt and hisses, jerking back. The skin over his right hand is criss-crossed with welts, as though he was lashed with a thousand tiny whips. "What is this?"

Guinevere winces, but only says, "Try again."

His right hand throbbing, Arthur reaches out with his left. This time, when his hand jerks back, blood wells as though from sliced wounds in his skin, and the thin lines sting.

"Guinevere, is this a joke?" One look at her face confirms what he already knew; this is not a jest but a test.

"Try again, Arthur."

He catches his breath at the sound of his name on her lips. And for one moment, he thinks about grabbing her shoulders, kissing her senseless and leaving the sword where it is and to hell with the dragon and his destiny.

It only lasts for a moment. He can't give up who he is, who he was brought up to be - not for Guinevere, not for anyone or anything. He is Arthur Pendragon, sired of Uthyr Pendragon and Igraine de Bois, and it is his destiny to rule.

This time, Arthur uses both hands to take the sword's hilt.

Excalibur doesn't quite leap into his hands, but it draws smooth as silk. Runes gleam down the blade, flashing fire in the brilliant sunlight.

"_All hail the bearer of Excalibur!_"

"_All hail Arthur, King of Camelot!_"

"_All hail the Pendragon, King of Albion that is yet to be!_"

The great cheer surprises him as it rises in the swelling chorus of a thousand voices.

Arthur looks around him and realises that the water is full of people - that the meadow isn't empty as he first through, but crowded with the folk of the _Tír fo Thuinn_. Their clothing would put Morgana's wardrobe to shame, their beauty would eclipse the moon, and they are made up of folk of all types and kinds - some with skin dark as the finest ebony, some with flesh translucent as glass, some who could walk into the court at Camelot and almost go unnoticed - but for the fineness of their clothing and the fierce passion of their faces.

And among them, standing close enough to touch - to kiss! - Guinevere.

"Arthur?" Merlin's voice echoes across the lake, as though from far away. "I can't hold the spell much longer."

Arthur turns to Guinevere and holds out his hand - uninjured, whole. "Come back."

She shakes her head. "I can't."

"You have to. I..." _I don't want to do this without you._ But he can't say it. They're not his words to say. He'll fulfil his destiny without her, become the foretold king. Yet the kind of king he wants to be is the king he dreamed she'd believed in. How can he be that king if she's not there to believe in him?

"_No harm to come to them, only that they remain with the Sídhe forever_," she quotes. "This isn't forever, Arthur."

But he wants it to be.

"Arthur!"

"One moment, Merlin!" Arthur doesn't look back at the shore. All his focus is on the woman he can't lose, not a second time, not like this. "Guinevere, please."

Her eyes track over his shoulder, and he turns, instinctively, bringing up the weapon and pushing her behind him. But the man who stands before him is no threat, only holding his place as he spreads his hands wide. "Lower your sword, Pendragon; I mean you no harm."

Arthur knows authority when he hears it - even a Sidhe authority. He lowers his sword and steps aside, but doesn't relinquish Guinevere's hand as the Sidhe king addresses her.

"You wish to return to the land of your birth, my daughter?"

She hesitates, diplomatic as ever. "You have been kind to me, my lord. Kind as a father to me in my time in Cameliard. But this is not my land or my people; I don't belong here."

"And yet you will not belong in the lands above, either." The king is older and harder - merciless in his pronouncements. "Do you not understand, Gwenhywfar? Your destiny lies here; you bound it to the Sidhe when you gave up your life."

"There's no other price?" Arthur asks, and the grip he has on Guinevere's hand is only matched by the fierce pressure of her own fingers on his. "Nothing you'll accept from me?"

The dark gaze is terrible to behold. "You cannot pay such a price, Pendragon. Do not think to offer."

"_Arthur_!"

Arthur turns to look down at Guinevere. He can't stay. She can't leave. He'll grow old and fade away into dust, with only the memories of a woman who taught him what it meant to be noble and not just highborn. And she? Will she remember him after a lifetime - multiple lifetimes - among the Sidhe?

"Go," she says. There's a break in her voice, but her will is steel as much as the sword in his hand. "Please, sire. Just go."

No time for a kiss or a word or a last goodbye. Arthur tears himself away before he forgets duty, honour, and that damned destiny which holds everything of glory and nothing of love, and sprints for the shore. The walls of water are rippling, trembling, he can see Merlin standing at the lake edge, hands raised, lips moving in an incantation to hold off the waters; but his strength is ebbing. Behind him, Arthur can hear crashing thunder as the water reclaims _Tír fo Thuinn_.

As he reaches the shore, Merlin is shaking like a leaf as he snaps out the last syllable, crisp and sharp.

Arthur turns to look back, the water lapping over his boots.

Only the grey sky and the snow-tipped peaks reflect back from the shattered mirror of the lake, surrounded by bitter pines.

\--

Merlin's never done a spell that big before.

He's not sure he'll survive to do another one.

The mud is cold against his knees, oozing between his fingers. He can barely keep himself from falling face-first into the mud, he's so weak. And there's something burning in his chest...

Wait. That's Arthur's arm wrapped around his body, trying to heave him up one-handed.

"How is it that someone so spindly can weigh so bloody much?"

"'S a gift I s'pose." He half-staggers, half-is-carried away from the muddy shore where the lake's water laps roughly at the greenery and collapses, managing to avoid falling on the sword that Arthur's still holding in his right hand and slicing himself in half. "Excalibur."

"That's what you said it was called." There's a bitter note to Arthur's voice, and Merlin squints up at the shadow that looms over him. Well, crouches, but in his present state of mind, it feels very looming.

"Gwen?"

"She had to stay with the Sídhe."

"Ah." It's all he can manage right now. He remembered seeing Arthur take her hand when the Sídhe man - not the one from last time, but another - stepped out of the wall of water and addressed Gwen. He'd thought that meant she'd be coming back. From the haunted weariness in Arthur's face, it looks like he did, too.

The proud, closed face glances at Merlin then turns away to look out over the smoothing surface of the lake. "I'm guessing you're not going to be much good for a while yet. We'll take a rest; get some food into you before we head back."

Arthur stands up and begins to head back to the horses.

He's going to be like this for days now - Prince Broody. Except that now it's King Broody. Not that Merlin can blame him.

_Gwen._ So close - his cheek still burns from the kiss she placed there, he felt the strength of her spirit in the brief hug she gave him: _Your destiny found you._

If he could part the waters again, would Gwen still be there? Or would it only show a muddy lake bed, the gates to this faery land now closed? Merlin doesn't know. And something in him wants to cast the waters back, to go in and plead for Gwen to come back - not for Arthur, or Morgana, but simply because he misses his friend.

"Sire!"

Merlin's seen it, too. The way the lake surface shivers, rings rippling out from its middle, something gliding through the water towards the shore on which their party stands.

"Merlin..."

"I don't know what it is." He struggles to his feet and uses the solid arm of Sir Breunor to hold him up as he stares out across the water. "Arthur..."

"I see it." He's already walked back down to the water's edge, and waits, sword in hand, not quite ready against an attack, although he could move in an instant - and would if it came to it.

Merlin readies the only thing he can be sure of at this moment - a spell to shove something back - and the words blur in his head.

Dark curls break the water, rising from the lake as though she's merely climbing stairs. She's not quite smiling - her expression is almost uncertain, as though she's secretly terrified of her reception - but she walks like a queen, moving through the murky waters without so much as a drop clinging to her skin or clothes.

Merlin dares a glance at Arthur's face, sees the agony of naked hope on his friend's face, and looks away.

Gwen halts just shy of the shore, close enough for Arthur to touch if he wished - if he wasn't standing there like a complete idiot, staring at her like he's having a vision. Nothing is said, no-one moves; then Arthur holds out his hand to her, tentative, as though he expects her to turn around and walk back into the lake. "You said you couldn't come back."

"I was wrong." Her hand slips into his, and Arthur brings it to his lips. Then, gently, he leads Gwen out of the water and out of the faery realms.

They ride out of the forest one more than they went in.

It puts Merlin in mind of another trip out of a forest; Arthur, Gwen, and he - of course, this time, there's a cavalcade of knights around them, and Gwen's riding pillion. He offered to walk, she told him his horse could carry both of them and he wasn't in a fit state to walk back to Camelot.

Arthur rides alongside them, his eyes regularly straying from the road to Gwen - as do the gazes of the people they pass in the fields and the villages - a woman clad in shimmering white, the flowers in her hair gleaming brilliant as any court jewels.

And Merlin listens to her asking after the knights' wives and children, their lives and loves, as easily and casually as if she'd only been gone to another town for a few days, listens to the smile in her voice as she answers Arthur's questions, and smiles to feel her laughter ripple out against his back.

He can't _wait_ to see Morgana's face when she realises.

There are questions he wants to ask her, things he wants to know. There's a dragon to be dealt with and a new King's rule to see in.

Merlin winds the reins about his hand a little more securely, and rests his wrist on the hand about his waist.

For the moment, it's enough to be riding home.

**fin**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a third story in mind, although it's not written, only planned out. I've drifted out of Merlin fandom and haven't really been encouraged to write, but I hope I'll have something done before the end of the Northern Hemisphere summer. :)


End file.
